Working in Partnerships in Health and Social Care

This presentation explores the concept of working in partnerships in health and social care. It discusses the importance of partnerships, the philosophies behind it, different types of partnership relationships, the merits and demerits of working in partnership, and the barriers that can arise. It also emphasizes the need for effective communication and skill development in partnerships.

WORKING IN PARTNERSHIPS
IN HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE
TASK 1: PARTNERSHIPS AND RELATIONSHIPS

INTRODUCTION
 Working In Partnership: a trust based mutual relationship between the people involved in
partnership for improving the quality of benefits.
 Working partnership is essential for health and social care as:
 It ensures that the health care organization and people working for them have a common goal;
 It boost equal sense of responsibility and determination for employers and employees;
 It helps employees to have clear understanding of duties;
 A good partnership between management and working staff is important for the people also who are being
taken care of.

PHILOSOPHIES OF WORKING IN PARTNERSHIP
Philosophies
Empowerment Respect Independence Making informed
choice Autonomy Power sharing

PHILOSOPHIES OF WORKING IN PARTNERSHIP
Empowerment Partnering organizations empower each other through adequate
coordination and cooperation of activities
It also meant to enabling the staff members and the caretakers to
ensure making of self-decisions
For example, people may be provided with the choice of taking their
food on timings as they wish or feel hungry

PHILOSOPHIES OF WORKING IN PARTNERSHIP
Respect Partnership stresses on
having mutual respect
between the concerned
parties to facilitate smooth
Respect for both patients
and staff is essential to

PHILOSOPHIES OF WORKING IN PARTNERSHIP
Independence Individual must be able to stand on its own irrespective of the others
working in a partnership
Independence in health and social care ensures that everyone has the
freedom of making decisions, however, it should be noted that it may
have positive or negative influence on other partners
For example, a rehabilitation centre that provides services to recover
from injuries in collaboration with a team of physiotherapists should
also be capable of providing its services without their assistance

PHILOSOPHIES OF WORKING IN PARTNERSHIP
Making
informed
choice
Partners in health and social care sectors must be able to make
informed decisions for the benefit of each other as well as the
patients and caretakers
Adequate communication and sharing of information between
the partners is essential to make informed decisions
For example, Drug suppliers should be informed in advance so that
they can deliver drugs at appropriate time in order to minimize drug
shortage issues

PHILOSOPHIES OF WORKING IN PARTNERSHIP
Autonomy It is the self-governance of the company that is protected by the
participants of partnership agreement.
For instance, although a Clinical commissioning group and care
home are partners to increase the quality both the companies have
the governance to manage promotions, recruit employees and
provide trainings or their own.

PHILOSOPHIES OF WORKING IN PARTNERSHIP
Power sharing It implies that when two companies are decided to become partners
then the power to take decisions and making choices has to be shared
among the two businesses equally.
Only one firm should not have more power, as can result in
employees frustration.
A shared power to take any actions and making choices are greatly
required in the partnership business.

TYPES OF PARTNERSHIP RELATIONSHIPS
• People working in a same team of health care organization share general relationship
• These people are willing to help whenever requiredGeneral Relationship
• In such partnership organisations from distinct sectors of the community work together.
For instance, a nurse from healthcare guide people about diseases like cancer, AIDS, etc.
In the same manner, a housing sector worker supports the homeless people in realising
the particular disease risks and assists them about some adequate housing facilities.
Multispectral
• For example, the relationship between suppliers and supply chain department. These
partners interact when there is a requirement of procurement or making payments,
otherwise there is hardly any communication
Relationship at Will

MERITS AND DEMERITS OF WORKING WITHIN A PARTNERSHIP
Merits
• Increased capital
• More flexible
• Shared responsibility
• Easy decision making
• Wider pool of skills
• Creative brainstorming
• Cost-effective operations
• Workforce development
• Learning and lobbying
• Coordinated service delivery
• New resource bidding
• Meeting the requirements of
statutory partnership
Demerit
• Disagreements may lead to split ups
• Unlimited liability
• Limited authority

MERITS OF WORKING IN PARTNERSHIP
 Increased Capital: More partners bring more investments to the health care unit, which facilitates better flexibility
and growth potential.
 Flexibility: In comparison to larger health care companies, working in partnership is easier to form, manage and
operate.
 Shared responsibility: Partners share responsibilities among themselves according to individual capability.
 Decision making: The decision making gets easier as more ideas of solving a particular issue become available.
 Wider pool of skills: More individuals bring a combination of wider pool of skills and knowledge to the health
care firm.
 Creative brainstorming: Every person contributes their input and ideas for resolving issues, then brainstorming is
used to generate creative ideas.
 Cost-effective operation: Less chance of health care agency to produce counterproductive or repetitive services
which makes it more cost-effective.

CONTD.
 The partnership working in health and social care leads to more effective service provision and offers a range of
services in the community, in order to meet the need of service users more effective and provide maximum
benefits to involved partners.
 The partnership removes barriers to progress towards the rehabilitation/stabilisation.
 It also provide more co-ordinated, consistent and comprehensive care.
 The partnership allows more access to number of education, employment and training opportunities.

BARRIERS TO WORKING IN PARTNERSHIP
 Communication
 Improper communication or communication gap between caretakers and the administration may
lead to serious issues, like inability to provide health care services at proper time.
 A proper flow of communication is important in health care to ensure relevant and urgent message
could be delivered to concern person on time.
 Unskilled or inexperienced or less skilled partner
 Employees might not be enough motivated and confident of working together with highly skilled
partners and vice versa

CONTD.
 Poor communication: Communication is one of the most important aspect for partnership in health care services. The proper
flow of communication helps to convey relevant message to concern person effectively. Inadequate communication practices
increases the communication gap between caretakers and the administration. For example, the use of typical acronyms and
impenetrable terminology by health specialists may lead to the exclusion of other partners. Another example may be selective
communication to few members which promotes personal agendas. These are serious issues and negatively affect the health care
partnerships for inability to provide adequate health care services at proper time.
 Skill gap: This is another serious issue prevailing in health care partnership, where if one or more members are not enough skilled
as compared to other members. It may happen that inexperienced or less skilled persons feels lesser confident and motivation
while working with high skilled members. Another dimension of the issue arises from gaps in professionals’ knowledge in a
multi-professional setting. It may happen that few individuals are competent in one or more areas and lacks knowledge of other
areas where other members are more competent. Such situation escalates conflicts and natural tension among partners.

EVALUATE PARTNERSHIP RELATIONSHIPS
 Individuals and organizations in the health and social care sectors that are working together are more
focused on potential benefits of partnership, thus ignoring the negative impact of such arrangements.
 Health and social care services provider should focus on effective delivery of high quality services
rather than individual benefits from working in partnerships.
 Integral to the context of UK health and social care sector, partners encounter a number of structural
and social barriers to building effective partnerships. Standardised approaches will not deliver
solutions to these issues, hence effective partnerships require health care service employers to
understand and engage with the different members of partnership to find the best possible ways of
improving relations.

CONTD.
 It is significant to monitor and report on partner’s working relations effectiveness by the use of formal mechanism.
It supports in defining negative perceptions, simmering conflict or relationship risks that can the be addressed
constructively before they challenged the partnership. It is important to look across multiple relations to determine
corporate barriers to effective partnering. Also, monitoring and evaluation supports the partners in anticipating
changes that would affect the partnership so they can plan collaboratively for such changes implications. For
instance, this supports the partnership to:
 Adapt to regulatory or competitive environmental changes;
 Reduce, expand or shift the focus of relationship;
 Lessen the negative effects of mergers, downsizing or restructuring;
 Respond to departure or reorganisation of key personnel.